"distinctions of the civil laws, but regarding only "the law of nature, approved every conjunction of "one man with a woman, if it was with one woman, "and perpetual: and the more so, because the Holy "Scriptures employ the name of wife or of concu"bine, indifferently. Fleury H. E. T. v. 120. Libanius being distressed by a law made against bastards (for he confesses that he had one) says that Theodosius granted him a dispensation, or even repealed the law to favour him. Liban. Vit. P. 61, 62. Si quis, says Constantine, in orbe Romano eunuchos fecerit, capite puniatur. Cod. L. iv. Tit. xlii. 1. See also Novel. cxlii. and Leonis Constit. Ix. Pagan emperors had made laws against this execrable crime. Digest. L. xlviii. Tit. viii. 3, 4, 6. He provided for the children of the poor out of his own revenues; and afterwards many charitable laws were made by him, and by Christian emperors who succeeded him, for the relief of the sick and helpless, beyond what had been done by pagans; though something of that kind must have been always performed in civilized countries. Concerning the places called Valetudinaria, Novonopea. See Seneca Epist. xxvii. de Ira, i. 16. Nat. Quæst. 1. Præfat. and the notes of Lipsius, Gruter, and Gronovius. The temples of Esculapius seem to have been a kind of hospitals; and doubtless the priests, who were commonly physicians, used their best endeavours to cure the patients, and the honour of cur ing them was ascribed to the God. Pliny mentions the gall of a white cock, as a cure for disorders in the eyes; and an old inscription in Gruter informs us that one Valerius Aper, a blind soldier, consulted Esculapius; that the God ordered him to make a salve of honey and the blood of a white cock, and anoint his eyes for three days; that he applied it, and recovered his sight, and came to the temple and returned public thanks to the god, and that this happened in the time of Antoninus Pius. See Harduin on Pliny, N. H. xxix. 38. He ordered that no woman of reputation should be arrested and forced out of her house for debt. Cod. Th. L. i. Tit. x. p. 57. He made a law against delators, after his victory over Maxentius, with a view to settle peace and tranquillity at Rome. He ordered such offenders to have Illud sane et ex hac lege et their tongues cut out. alus nonnullis discimus, Constantinum poenas acerbissimas legibus indixisse, si quisquam principum, ut―vitia frangeret. Gothofred, ad Cod. Th. L. x. Tit. x. p. 431. He published an edict by which he declared himself ever ready to receive and hear any complaints against his officers, governors, and counsellors of state, which should be well-grounded, and promised not only to do justice to the sufferers, but to recompence them for their pains. Cod. Th. Chron. p. 25. He made a law to punish adultery with death, which had not been a capital crime, in that sense before in the Roman empire. See the first Volume of these Remarks, p. 163. and Gothofred ad Cod. Th. L. xi. Tit. xxxvi. p. 295. He repealed the Papian law. One of the corruptions which soon crept into the church, was a fanatical notion concerning celibacy, the recommending it too much, and the requiring it of several; for which the civil magistrate ought to have reprimanded and checked the ecclesiastics. The fathers began from early times to talk weakly and injudiciously upon this subject, VOL. II. I something worse, are mistaken. See the commentators on Longinus, who greatly admires this modest and polite periphrasis of the historian; and an epistle of Musgrave de hemorragis menstruis virorum, in the Philosoph. Trans. MDCCI, p. 864. Bacchus was αῤῥενόθηλυς. Διονύσῳ τῷ γύνιδιἀφιέρωσαν ἐκκλησίαν, τὸ καταγέλασον καὶ ἀνδρόγυνον ἐν αὐτῇ ἱδρύσαντες ἄγαλμα. Ecclesiam Baccho Ganidi consecrarunt, simulacro ejus ridiculo et androgyno in ea collocato Theodoret iii. 7. Jupiter ανδρόξυνος γίνεται, εἰ καὶ μὴ τὴν γαςέρα, ἀλλὰ γῆν τὸν μηρὸν κυοφορῶν, ἵνα καὶ ταῦτα παρὰ φύσιν αὐτῷ πράτζολο. καὶ τὸ διθύραμβον κύημα ανδρό. Γυνον γενόμενον εκατέραν ἐνύβρισε φύσιν. απ drogynus fuctus est, non in utero quidem sed in femore fætum gestans, ut et ista præter naturam ab eo committerentur. Unde ortus Bacchus ipse quoque androgynus, utrumque sexum contumelia affecit. Evagrius i. 11. It appears from one of his laws, that the Pagans attempted sometimes to compel the Christians to join with them in acts of religion. He ordered such of fenders to be bastinadoed, or if they were rich to be fined; which was not amiss. By a law which condemns magic arts exercised to the hurt of others, he permits charms, and incantations, and such sort of tricks, intended for harmless or good purposes: He made laws for the religious observation of Sunday, Euseb. Vit. Const. iv. 18. Sozom, i. 8. Sicut indignissimum videbatur, diem Solis, veneratione sui celebrem, altercantibus jurgiis et noxiis partium contentionibus occupari, ita gratum ac jucundum est, eo die quæ sunt maxima votiva compleri: atque ideo emancipandi et manumittendi die festo cuncti licentium habeant, et super his rebus actus non prohibeantur. Cod. Th. L. ii. Tit. viii. p. 118. Before Before this law, he had given one, which runs thus: Omnes judices urbanceque plebes, et cunctarum artium, officia venerabili die solis quiescant. Kuri tamen positi agrorum culture libere licenterque inserviant: quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis, aut vinece scrobibus mandentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas cœlesti provisione concessa. Cod. L. iii. Tit. xiii. 3. Compare this with Virgil, Georg. i. 268, whom the legislator seems to have had in view: Quippe etiam festis quædam exercere diebus Scævola, consultus quid ferüis 4gi liceret, respondit, Quod omissum ncceret. Macrobius Saturn. i. 16. The emperor Leo repealed this law of Constantine, and published one more strict. Constit. liv. Gothofred in his notes on the Theod. Code gives us the laws for the observation of Sunday, made from A. D. 321. to A. D. 425. by Constantine, Valentinian I. and II. and Theodosius I. and II. He obliged his saldiers to repeat on Sundays a prayer addressed to the one only God. The Christians. would have died a thousand deaths, rather than have addressed a prayer to Jupiter; and therefore this may be looked upon as a sort of violence offered to the consciences of the Pagans; but it must be considered that the pagans in general, the Roman soldiers in particular, were hardly troubled with pious scruples of this kind. They who used to worship their own worthless emperors living or dead, and their own standards, were not men who would have accounted this any oppression or infringement of religious liberty, If any of them had hesitated, his comrades probably would have laughed him to scorn, and have said to him, as one slave in Terence says to another who seemed to boggle at perjury, Nova nunc religio te istac incessit. The Christians at that time, being just delivered from persecution, must have had some sense of the odious nature of such cruel proceedings. Prudence also directed them not to terrify and provoke the pagans too much; and therefore Constantine declared that he would compel no man to receive the Christian religion. The first imperial law in favour of Christianity, which was published by Constantine and Licinius, began with this reasonable preamble: ་ Ηδη μὲν πάλαι σκοπῶν]ες τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς θρησκείας ἐκ ἀρνηθέαν εἶναι, ἀλλ ̓ ἑνὸς ἑκάς» τῇ διανοίᾳ και βολήσει ἐξασίαν δολέον τὸ τὰ θεῖα πράγματα τημελῶν κατὰ τὴν αὐτῷ προαίρεσιν -Jamdudum quidem, cum animadverteremus non esse cohibendam religionis libertatem, sed uniuscujusque arbitrio ac voluntati permittendum ut ex animi sui sententia rebus divinis 0peram daret.-Eusebius, x. 5. But the Christians soon learned to sing a new song, and to acquire a taste for wholesome severities. First they deprived heretics of their places of worship, then they forbad them to assemble any where, and then they fined, imprisoned, banished, starved, whipped, and hanged them, for the advancement of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and for the honour of Christianity. Such were the dictates of public wisdom. In the mean time the bishops, in their councils, made canons forbidding Catholic' to marry his children to Heretics, or to any |